In a New York Times op-ed, Columbine author Dave Cullen cites Gabby Giffords ’93’s gun control advocacy organization as a major contributor to the gun safety movement’s recent progress. Giffords, a former congressmember who survived a mass shooting in 2011, founded the organization, also called Giffords, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting ten years ago. “Giffords cultivated strong candidates for state and local offices and reached out to gun owners, identifying them as allies rather than antagonists,” Cullen writes. “. . . New leaders, new strategies, new coalitions, new organizing principle. And they have been winning deep in gun country.”
Giffords recently received the Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden and a documentary about her life and work, Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down, premiered earlier this year.